Common ways to express a musical work in writing include standard musical notation. FIG. 1 shows the beginning portion of a fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach expressed in standard musical notation.
In standard musical notations, a musical work is formed from a series of measures 1. Each measure 1 may contain notes 2 and rests 3. Notes 2 depict certain tones which are determined based on a clef 4, a key signature 5, and the note's position on a staff 6. Rests 3 depict the absence of a tone. The duration with which a note 3 is played is determined by the shape of the note, as well as a time signature 7.
Beyond the tone and duration of a particular note 3, standard musical notation can be used to describe numerous other aspects of a musical work, such as the tempo at which the work is played, the loudness or softness of a certain note, whether one note flows smoothly or discretely to the next note, etc.
Various computer programs exist by which a person can express a musical work in standard musical notation, or other ways.
Some expressions of a musical work do not fully and unambiguously indicate the exact way to perform the musical work. For example, in FIG. 1, there is no indication of the tempo at which to play the musical work. In such circumstances, a performer can supply the missing details. This is referred to as “interpreting” the musical work.
Some musical works are amenable to several different interpretations. Interpreting a musical work can involve adding, removing, or changing musical features of the original work. For example, interpretations of musical works may differ as to the speed with which certain passages are played, the volume with which certain notes are played, etc. Various interpretations of a musical work may be of interest. For example, interpretations of a famous musical work by various accomplished performers can be used to gain insight into the musical work, the individual performers, musical techniques, etc.
Similarly, different musical performers of the same skill level, each playing from the same written expression of a musical work, will often perform the musical work differently. The differences are due, in part, to nuances or interpretations the respective performers impart to their performances. In some instructional contexts, such as a master class or clinic, one or several accomplished performers will perform a work. The students in attendance have the opportunity to learn new aspects of the musical work, by observing how each accomplished performer played the musical work. Often, a student who has learned something about a musical work annotates a pre-existing written expression of the work to indicate what the student learned. However, over the course of time, a student may be exposed to (or independently develop) several ideas about a single musical work. Thus, annotating a single written expression of the work with each idea may result in confusion from the sheer number of annotations, or if the ideas are conflicting (e.g., one idea involves playing a passage quickly, but another idea involves playing the passage slowly). To avoid this confusion, the student may use several copies of the same musical work, and limit annotations on one copy to ideas learned from a particular instructor. This approach, however, may be cumbersome to the student, and therefore some students do not record (by annotating or otherwise) at least some of the ideas that occur to them over time. It is therefore desirable for such a student to conveniently be able to clearly and conveniently record musical ideas, in particular as annotations on an existing musical work.